I have a mystery box. This mystery box is filled with things that come out of drawers, unlabeled boxes, nooks and crannies, seemingly nowhere. Occasionally, I pluck something out of this mystery box and decide what it is, what to do with it, where it came from, and to whom I should show it. This plucking tends to occur on Saturday mornings when the library is scheduled to open in the afternoon. On one such Saturday, I came upon this inconspicuous scrapbook. From the outside, it looks like something haphazardly put together, probably never completed, of ordinary family snapshots. Even the first couple of pages support that theory. There are pictures of circus tents, street scenes, and stiff portraits of various individuals identified in a scratchy but legible script. Four pages in, I came across two photographs of a little baby plagued with congenital hydrocephalus. This is a sad story because the baby died shortly after the picture was taken from this condition, but the pictures are stunning -- stunning for their ordinariness format amidst the breath-stifling subject. The scrapbook goes on to illustrate in breadth the building of Kings County Hospital and is identified with captions.
The first page of photographs
Unfortunately, I don't know how we acquired this scrapbook of photographs or from whom it came, but as I find the time (or the intern) to research it, I will inform everyone of updates. Feel free to stop by and check it out the next time you visit the library.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
With the low resolution, it may be impossible to identify places and people in these images. I suggest a rescan at high resolution and posting them again. I can volunteer for the task. I have the equipment and professional knowledge for the task ahead.
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